The present patent application relates in general to the field of computers and other data processing systems, including hardware, software and processes. More particularly, the present patent application pertains to the billing management of Pay Per Click (PPC) advertisements.
Pay Per Click (PPC) is a fundamental market of the Internet. In a PPC model, an Advertiser creates a clickable advertisement link from a popular public website that is maintained by a Publisher. Whenever a visitor to that website clicks the advertisement link, the Advertiser pays the Publisher of the popular public website a fee. That is, the Advertiser pays the Publisher for each “click through” that a visitor to the Publisher's website generates, thus paying the Publisher for each “referral” to the Advertiser's website.
Click Fraud (CF) occurs when a person or organization repeatedly generates clicks to a PPC advertisement with the intent of generating an improper charge to the Advertiser. Typically, this repeated clicking is automatically performed by a “clickbot,” which is software-based logic that emulates movement of a pointer over the PPC advertisement and clicking thereon. Parties who may have an economic motivation to commit CF include the Publisher, an Advertising Network whose revenues are based on how often their advertisements are clicked, an Advertisement Agency whose revenues and/or reputation are enhanced according to how often the ads they create are clicked (regardless of which Publisher website publishes the PPC link), and competitors of the Advertiser who wish to deplete the Advertiser's advertising budget.
Although CF is clearly unethical and is illegal in several jurisdictions, the practice nonetheless continues, and according to some estimates, accounts for 2-20% of all clicks of PPC advertisements.